Key Points and Summary: While the F-35 dominates global sales, the Eurofighter Typhoon has the performance, reliability, and availability to make it an attractive alternative.
-As geopolitical tensions rise, the Eurofighter’s surprising longevity in the fighter market shows that older designs still have life left.
-With its advanced EJ200 engines, thrust-vectoring innovations, and continuous upgrades, the Eurofighter Typhoon continues to attract buyers beyond its original NATO partners.
4 Words: Upgrades Keep It Flying
Eurofighter Typhoon: The Fighter Jet That Refuses to Fade
The news that Turkey now plans to acquire 40 of the four-nation consortium Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet is a sign, said one NATO-nation intelligence officer, “There is still life left in this program.”
Eurofighter is a design that began back in the 1980s and entered production only in the early 2000s. But it is still chalking up sales, which is no small testament to the longevity built into the original concept for the aircraft.
The program began with the idea that another multinational European program, the Panavia Tornado, would be the template for this new effort. It was designed to be an air superiority fighter to replace an entire raft of previous-generation models—like older American-made F-4s—still in service with European nations at the time.
The three partner nations of the Tornado program were the UK, Germany, and Italy. With the Eurofighter, the same three nations were also engaged in the program’s design, but now with the addition of a fourth partner, Spain.
The initial concept was to use the program management structure for the Tornado as a template and then “build out” the effort to bring in the fourth partner nation for the Eurofighter.
How Eurofighter Typhoon Was Born: The Soviet Threat
Eurofighter Typhoon, in some respects, was perfectly conceived: four nations pooling their aerospace and industrial might to produce an aircraft that could challenge anything the then-Soviet Union’s defense sector could produce and field during the Cold War dynamic of the East-West divide.
Military intelligence officials of European NATO nations who were involved in the conceptual design phase of the aircraft said in the 1990s, “We were not trying to develop an aircraft that would be an analog to the US F-22 program that would be used all over the world. Our goal initially was to have an aircraft that could challenge the next-generation Soviet fighter design concepts.”
That fighter concept that they were talking about was what later became known as the Mikoyan MFI, “MFI” being an acronym for “Multirole Fighter.” It was sometimes referred to within intelligence community circles by its design bureau prototype designator of “Project 1.42.”
The Russian aircraft ultimately did not fly until late 1999 and never went into production.
The cancellation was due to the collapse of the economy in the post-Soviet Union, and the mission for the aircraft had changed markedly during the years it was in development.
Customers and Innovation
With the fall of the USSR and the Soviet threat essentially non-existent, the Eurofighter’s future was threatened by NATO governments, who concluded that there was no longer a need to build a new-generation fighter aircraft.
That assessment prompted the program partner nations to look for suitable export customers in order to replace orders that European governments could cancel, convinced that “Russia will never rise again.”
Eurofighter Typhoon export sales have been concluded in the years since with Austria, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. But, with the UK being one of the major partners in the program and given its long-running counter-trade relationship with Saudi Arabia, allegations of improprieties soon surfaced over these contracts with the desert kingdom.
Individuals involved in the UK-Saudi negotiations became involved in investigations over the terms of these arrangements.
“You can understand the situation the Brits are in,” said a US industry analyst at the time. “Ever since the 1980s BAE Systems has been heavily dependent on this set-up with the Saudis—where oil is traded for weapons and all the various side deals that are made in the process. It is impossible for them to exit this business because too many people’s livelihoods depend on it.”
On the positive side, the aircraft has produced some rather impressive innovations. One of the more notable has been the engine. The most impressive of these hae been the use of what the EJ200 engine’s developers call the “Balance-Beam Effect for Lower Actuator Loads.”
In this proposed modification, the EJ200 thrust vectoring nozzle uses a “partial balance-beam effect” to reduce the load on the engine. In this way the EJ200 “utilizes gas stream energy to move the nozzle, reducing the work required from the actuators.”
In plain English, this means that the thrust vectoring of the engine is used not to make aerobatic displays, as was seen in the 1990s, on Russian aircraft, but is employed to run the engine cooler in normal flight maneuvers, which can extend the engine service life.
The Turkish sale proves that even in the 21st century when the US F-35 seems to be the fighter du jour, there are still nations interested in the Eurofighter and the innovations it has to offer to its users.
Turkey, which has been expelled from the F-35 program, may end up being one of several nations that have placed their bets on this European program instead.
Eurofighter Typhoon: A Story in Photos (UPDATE)
080719-N-3218H-011 ATLANTIC OCEAN (July 19, 2008) A French F-2 Rafale fighter prepares to launch during combined French and American carrier qualifications aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). This event marks the first integrated U.S. and French carrier qualifications aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group is participating in Joint Task Force Exercise “Operation Brimstone” off the Atlantic coast until the end of July. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Christopher Hall/Released)
Eurofighter Typhoon
Eurofighter Typhoon.
A UK Eurofighter Typhoon flies above the Baltics on 25 May 2022. UK and Czech fighter jets have been taking part in air defence training over the Baltic region. UK Eurofighter Typhoons, F-35s and Czech Gripens were involved in an exercise as part of Neptune Shield 22 (NESH22), a multinational maritime vigilance activity. NESH22 has seen a range of multi-domain activities between air, land and maritime assets across Europe and in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. It runs from 17 to 31 May 2022.
Eurofighter Typhoon. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Typhoon fitted with the common launcher (computer generated image: for illustrative purposes only)
German Air Force Eurofighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Eurofighter Typhoon. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
